Goshen Township - Township trustees are taking swift action to replace their former fiscal officer.

The trustees met Thursday to formally accept the resignation of Amanda Spies and hire a deputy fiscal officer to serve as a temporary replacement. 

Trustee Sam Wise says they needed to get somebody in there right away to handle some unfinished business.

"As of right now, we are without W2 forms done for our employees, and we are without the knowledge of knowing if our federal and state taxes have been paid, and I think we’re pretty sure that we don’t have temporary appropriations," he explains.

Wise says once their new deputy clerk gets started they’ll have a better idea of what shape their records are in.

"The board of trustees is going to vigilantly attempt to get our books and our records and our UAN system where it should be, and that is the most important thing for our citizens. We need to know what is in our records and what we have. Right now, we don’t," he says.

Spies and trustees had since been at odds since last spring when the township's records were deemed “unauditable.” Trustees at the time paid an accounting firm $9,600 to get things in proper order. 

The situation came to a head last week when trustees announced they had filed an affidavit with the state auditor's office seeking Spies’ removal. Two days later, she submitted her resignation.

Spies in her resignation letter cited the “ hostile work environment” created by trustees as the reason for her departure. She thanked township residents for their votes and their confidence and called the statements made against her by trustees in their affidavit “misleading” and “outright falsehoods.” 

Trustees have until February 24th to appoint a full-time fiscal officer to serve the remainder of Spies’ term. The office is up for election this November.